In conversation.............................National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Monday, March 18, 2013

I was reminded of how ten years ago, I was obsessed with Tim Blank's TV series, Masters of Style. It was the closest I could get to studying designers such as Jean Paul Gaultier, Valentino and John Galliano.

I saw this exciting invitation as an opportunity to research first-hand the works of those I'd dreamed about as a teen. For this project I worked to create drawings from the designs of Saint Laurent, Christian Dior, John Galliano, Azzedine Alaïa, Karl Lagerfeld, Comme des Garçons and Pierre Cardin, and Australian and New Zealand labels such as Kara Baker, Martin Grant, World, Akira Isogawa, Le Louvre, Magg and Toni Maticevski.

I then looked to the street in search of echoes of what I was researching in the Gallery, creating a suite of drawings that looks for visual relationships between designer garments and the street culture of Melbourne.

This collection of drawings will be published on the National Gallery of Victoria's blog from March 18 2013. I wish to continue this project as I feel I have barely scratched the surface of this rich and exciting collection of fashion and textiles. For this opportunity I thank greatly the curators at the Gallery, especially, Danielle Whitfield.

In addition to this project I will be talking publicly for the first time about my art work at the National Gallery of Victoria's Ian Potter Centre at Federation Square. This event will take place March 21 2013, at 12:30pm in the centre's Crossbar Cafe, Level 3. For more information please visit the National Gallery of Victoria's Website.